But I did notice the new 2009 figures for Catholic growth came out of the Vatican yesterday. The estimate:

15 million new Catholics as of the end of 2009. Which is actually a drop from the 19 million new Catholics in 2008. In two years, 2008 - 2009, we've seen 34 million additional Catholics join the Church. But such are the numbers we deal with.

A total of 1.181 billion Catholics on the planet as of 14 months ago. At that rate, our numbers are almost certainly closing in on 1.2 billion as I write this post.

Last year, I posted this little thought experiment which is worth repeating. Take a moment to contemplate:

15 million additional Catholics entered the Church in 2009:Most are baptized infants. But perhaps a million could be older children or adult converts.

If brought together in one place, these new Catholics would produce a Catholic Cairo, Egypt:

That means 41,095 additional Catholics or a new Edmonds, Washingon every day.

That means 1,712 additional Catholics every hour.

29 additional Catholics every minute.

15 million immortals15 million people created by God15 million people redeemed by Jesus Christ 15 million members of the Body of Christ15 million people who need to encounter Christ personally and respond to his call to follow him15 million people anointed by Christ himself for a vocation, to play a unique part in his redemption of the world15 million people given charisms for the sake of others (and most people are given more than one!)

15 million people who need to be loved, prayed for, fed, housed, clothed, educated, evangelized, catechized, to receive the sacraments, have a place to attend Mass regularly, receive help in discerning and answering God's call, and to be encouraged along the journey.

At the current 0.0348% percentage of priests (just under 3.5/100ths of 1%) in the Catholic Churchthose 15 million would include roughly 5,215 priestly vocations.

Can we take this in? What is God doing? What are we called to do? What implications do you see?

It's worth thinking about. Cause we are going to find that another 15 million or more will have joined us in 2010.

]]>sherry@siena.org (Sherry)February 2011Sun, 20 Feb 2011 18:49:28 +0000John Allen, Pew, and the Catholic Failure to Evangelize.https://www.siena.org/February-2011/john-allen-pew-and-the-catholic-failure-to-evangelize
https://www.siena.org/February-2011/john-allen-pew-and-the-catholic-failure-to-evangelizeLong time readers of Intentional Disciples and those who have attended Making Disciples will have heard this all before, but John Allen has an interesting interview with Pew Forum senior researcher Greg Smith this morning:

Here's a few thought-provoking snippets, cast in what is very much "marketplace of ideas" language:

Everybody's losing members in this country, some even more than Catholics. In percentage terms, Catholic losses are not out of line with other groups. It's on the recruitment side that Catholics are not doing as well. Protestants are losing lots of members too, but for every four Americans who are no longer Protestant, there are three who are Protestant today who were not raised that way. Protestantism is declining as a whole, but the recruitment rate is pretty good. Catholics are not replenishing their ranks through conversion in the same way.

Snip.

Smith: One of the things I was struck by, especially with regard to the Catholic church, is the degree to which apparent stability masks enormous change just below the surface. If all you look at is the percentage of the population who told us they're Catholic, it's exactly what we've found for four decades, and you would think nothing much is going on. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Snip.

But one of the points of the report is that to understand the dynamics of American religion, you have to see retention and recruitment together. It's the churn, the ratio of leaving to joining, which matters. It's the recruitment side that sets Catholics apart. Four people leave Catholicism for every one who joins, and there's no other religious group where you see a similar ratio. Baptists, for example, also have more people leaving than joining, but their ratio of 2-1 is twice of what we see for Catholics.

The article also covers that religious change is normal in our culture across the spectrum; the "two track" reality - that Catholic who leave to become Protestants are motivated differently from those who leave to become nothing - and that most religious change happens early in life, by age 24.

It is worth reading the whole piece. 21st century American cultural winds are, oddly enough, supporting religious groups who actively go out and evangelize and penalizing groups that depend largely upon inherited faith and culture to maintain their numbers.

Just one note: remember, the topic here is the retention of religious identity, not how often people who still regard themselves as Catholic actually attend Mass. Around the Catholic blogosphere, we tend to conflate the two issues but the Pew study addresses both separately and John Allen is focusing on the first issue of religious identity in this interview.

The interview is about the roughly 32% of American adults who were raised Catholic and now call themselves something else and the 2.6% of American adults who are converts to Catholicism from some other background.

]]>sherry@siena.org (Sherry)February 2011Wed, 09 Feb 2011 20:39:10 +0000Back Soonhttps://www.siena.org/February-2011/ill-be-back
https://www.siena.org/February-2011/ill-be-backI won't be blogging this week. I have to focus on a big writing project which needs to be substantially done before I leave on February 15 to spend two weeks caring for my sister, who is a cancer patient in Houston. I hope I'll be able to post some while I'm there.

I'd very much appreciate your prayers for my sister, Becky!

]]>sherry@siena.org (Sherry)February 2011Wed, 09 Feb 2011 14:57:09 +0000Masters of Theological Studies for Working Professionalshttps://www.siena.org/February-2011/masters-of-theological-studies-for-working-professionals
https://www.siena.org/February-2011/masters-of-theological-studies-for-working-professionalsThere is a most interesting Master's of Theological Studies (MTS) for Working Professionals being offered at the Dominican School of Philosophy & Theology in California this summer.

The MTS program at DSPT is unique because it takes seriously the professional experience of its students, and weaves that experience into the ongoing philosophical and theological conversations of our community of scholars. Our MTS students experience their profession as a vocation for Church and society. They work in areas such as business, health care, education, social work, fine arts, the Church, and other related fields. They are willing to ask the deeper questions – questions about how their professional experience interfaces with the life and mission of the Church.

]]>sherry@siena.org (Sherry)February 2011Fri, 04 Feb 2011 18:19:15 +0000Why Vocation Programs Don't Workhttps://www.siena.org/February-2011/why-vocation-programs-dont-work
https://www.siena.org/February-2011/why-vocation-programs-dont-workThere is a must-read essay in the February, 2011 edition of Homiletics and Pastoral Review that I will be distributing to everyone I know: Why Vocation Programs Don't Work. The author is Fr. Damian J. Ference, who is currently a professor of philosophy and member of the formation team at Borreomeo seminary in Ohio.

Here's a taste:

The root of our current vocation problem is a lack of discipleship. Of course, a disciple is one who encounters Jesus, repents, experiences conversion and then follows Jesus. All too often those of us in positions of Church leadership presume that all the folks in the pews on Sundays, all the children in our grade schools, high schools and PSR programs, all the kids in our youth groups, all the men in our Men’s Clubs and all the women in our Women’s Guilds, and all the members of our RCIA team are already disciples. Many are not. (The same can be said of staffs and faculties of Catholic institutions.) Our people may be very active in the programs of our parishes, schools and institutions, but unfortunately, such participation does not qualify for discipleship.

Snip.

First, an important principle to keep in mind is that disciples beget disciples. In other words, if we are really serious about fostering better marriages, holier priests, more devoted religious, and generally a more faithful and dedicated Church, then those of us who are already married, ordained, and consecrated, and who identify ourselves as Catholics must take a good, hard look at our own lives and evaluate how our discipleship measures up. How long has it been since we last experienced real conversion and transformation? How often to we repent of our sins? Do we really allow Jesus to rule our lives, or have we fallen into the ancient trap of Pelagianism, ultimately believing that we save ourselves? Do we really know Jesus? Do we allow him to really know us? These questions are important ones, for unless we as a Church can offer true models and exemplars of discipleship with our own lives, very few will seriously consider living the kind of life we live.

Snip.

Second, we need to reevaluate how our parish groups, ministries, and programs operate. We have to ask if these groups are truly fostering discipleship, or if they are simply social groups that happen to meet on parish grounds.

Healing terrible burns in a few days through spraying on adult stem cells using a "skin cell gun"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eXO_ApjKPaI

]]>sherry@siena.org (Sherry)February 2011Thu, 03 Feb 2011 18:26:44 +0000Mapping Transformationhttps://www.siena.org/February-2011/mapping-transformation
https://www.siena.org/February-2011/mapping-transformationThis will give you a taste of some of the material I will be covering in depth at the Making Disciples training the trainer weekend in early March.

There was a goodly bit of discussion around St. Blog's three years ago about Robert George's passionate plea at First Things:Danger and Opportunity: A Plea to Catholics I'd like to use a few of his comments as a chance to pull out some realities that are not usually mentioned in a discussion of this sort:

Robert George:What is in need of transformation is not the teaching of the Church but the human mind and heart to which these teachings are addressed. Christianity is a religion of transformation. No one is literally born into it; even infants at baptism are converted to it. There is not a Catholic on the planet or in the history of the Church who is not a convert.

One huge evangelical gap for Catholics is our failure to give serious attention to the development stage when our children, who were baptized as infants, must become "converts", that is, they must enter intentionally into the process of conversion which is required of all. We've tried to use Confirmation prep to do this in a half-hearted way but now that many dioceses are lowering the age of Confirmation, even this is being taken away from us.

Our catechetical practice is much more informative than transformative. We are much likely to offer concepts than Christ but it is the encounter with Christ that sets transformation in motion.

Robert George:Conversion is effected, by God’s grace, by transformative acts of the intellect and will.

Sherry's comments:George is using a sort of Thomistic short-hand here because he presumes that his theologically literate First Things audience can fill in the blanks.

But our experience is that many, many Catholics who are literate in other areas of the faith can't fill in the blanks when it comes to understanding or describing how God's grace that flows from Christ's self-giving love and our personal faith and assent work together to produce personal transformation. They can't fill in the blanks because no one has ever described the process to them in a meaningful way and especially because they have not seen it lived out in a compelling way.

The phrase "transformative acts of the intellect and will" actually falls far short of conveying all that the Council of Trent taught about the process of coming to faith for those who have reached the age of reason. And in a post-modern era, in which almost all the theological underpinnings presumed by George are missing, talking about the process of salvation in this way can be profoundly misleading.

Post-modern Catholics can and will readily assume that we are describing a completely impersonal and mechanical process - a sort of salvation by the "triumph of the will". No wonder when Peter Kreeft asked his Catholic students at Boston College why they should go to heaven, nearly all of them responded that they were saved because they were basically good people who did good things and hardly any of them mentioned Jesus Christ at all.

In the Decree on Justification, the council taught that there was a progression of spiritual "movements" on the journey to salvific faith for adults and those children who have reached the age of reason. And we must remember that what the Church is describing below is non-negotiable pre-baptismal faith, not Christian maturity.

The adult ready for baptism is described in this way:

1) Moved to initial faith by hearing the kerygma (the basic summary of the saving purposes and work of Christ in which initial faith is placed)

2) Moves freely toward God as a result of #1

3) Believes all that God has revealed to humanity through the Churcha.Especially that we are justified by God’s grace through the redemption in Jesus Christ

4) Knows themselves to be a sinner

5) Trusts in the mercy and love of God for Christ’s sake

6) Repents of his or her sins

7) Resolves to receive baptism

8) Begins a new life by seeking to obey the commandments of God (the obedience of faith)

If we mentally and verbally collapse this journey to "acts of the intellect and will", we effectively render points 1, 2, 3a, 4, 5, 6 invisible to ourselves and to those we seek to evangelize.

Robert George:And the process of conversion is lifelong, whether one begins it a few days or weeks after birth or on one’s eighty-fifth birthday. Christ is constantly calling us to conversion and making available to us the divine graces that are its fundamental resources. We falter and fail; he lifts us up and puts us back on track. We grow in him, so long as we are faithful in responding to his acts of love for us by our acts of love of God and neighbor.

Sherry's comments:I would agree with George absolutely. With one caveat. The journey of lived conversion that George describes so clearly here begins when we say an intentional, personal "yes" to the Lord who bestowed upon us the baptismal and other sacramental graces that most of us received as infants. Our strong tendency is to presume that this intentional "yes" has been given because we were baptized even when the evidence of millions of lapsed Catholics tells us otherwise.

]]>sherry@siena.org (Sherry)February 2011Wed, 02 Feb 2011 17:32:03 +0000Joy is the Serious Business of Heavenhttps://www.siena.org/February-2011/joy-is-the-serious-business-of-heaven
https://www.siena.org/February-2011/joy-is-the-serious-business-of-heavenMark Shea hit this one out of the ballpark: a wonderful essay over at the National Catholic Register, answering an inquiry from a graduate student facing the demands of a heterodox Christology course. It's seems most relevant to the discussions we've been having here of late:

"The trick will be not so much to remain orthodox (that’s fairly easy, considering how dreadfully dull the theological legacy of the Pepsi Generation is). Rather, the trick will be avoiding becoming a bitter Pharisee who turns Catholic faith into a particularly nasty and uninviting sort of Protestantism.

What do I mean? I mean that you cannot build a life on protest, not even a protest against heresy. If your Catholic faith is primarily a reaction against Those People Over There (whoever They are) then it is not about Jesus Christ, but about anger over some human hurt you have received (like the hurt of getting drivel from teachers who have betrayed their office and used it to subvert the gospel). The Catholic faith is not a mere reaction to this world. It is about God breaking into this world with joy in order to save it. It is hell, not the Faith, that is on the defensive. That’s why “the gates of hell” (a defensive image from siege warfare) shall not prevail against the Church. So the trick is to be joyful, not angry and bitter, in your work of subverting the dominant paradigm. Have worldly teachers sold the Faith for a pot of heterodox message? Sure! What did you expect the world to do?

But the good news is, not only is that project failing, but the gospel is emerging stronger than ever because Jesus Christ lives. Brickbats and crosses it shall endure till That Day, but it remains full of joy, not bitterness, till then. So the approach we take is not the mere anger of the Revolutionary against the Old Regime, but the gladness of the saint. As Jesus put it:

I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven. Behold, I have given you authority to tread upon serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy; and nothing shall hurt you. Nevertheless do not rejoice in this, that the spirits are subject to you; but rejoice that your names are written in heaven.” (Luke 10:18-20)

This mistaken focus on defeating the spirits rather than rejoicing in Heaven is the central mistake that many of those concerned about retrieving the Tradition from the vandals have made. They have become so focused on their anger over the vandalism that they have forgotten that it’s not about defeating Hell, but about rejoicing over the triumph of a Heaven that has already defeated Hell on Easter.

So do your subversive work joyfully, fixing your eyes on heavenly things and not on earthly ones. You will receive all the opposition and hostility that are the saint’s badge of honor. Take it to God and do not let Hell take away your joy. It’s your birthright in Baptism."